It’s only a matter of time before you start to correspond with Fat Yuri on your bride search. In fact, it will be sooner rather than later. So it is best to be aware of this now. In your mind, you think you might be corresponding with a girl like this:

But in reality, you are really corresponding with this guy:

He is known as Fat Yuri among those in the foreign bride seeking market and he wants your money.

I hate to burst your bubble but forces are conspiring against you to separate you from your money by exploiting your one weakness: your love of pretty girls! The internet is completely anonymous. It didn’t take long for some people to figure out that they can impersonate a foreign bride and start writing letters professing love for a hapless bride seeker for the purpose of getting money from him.

You might think that you’re too smart to fall for such a transparent scam, but don’t be so sure. The internet is full of men that have been scammed out of thousands of dollars because they really wanted to believe that the sexy girls in the photos they saw is who they are really writing to, and all they need to do is send $2000 via Western Union for visa and travel expenses and she’ll be arriving at his door and make him live happily ever after. Trust me, it’s tempting.

This scam works more often than you think because American men looking for Russian women (RW) have been conditioned by the marketing departments of many foreign bride and mail order bride (MOB) sites to believe that Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union is populated by super models who don’t care what you look like, how old you are or how much you make. They will love you, marry you, have children with you and live happily ever after. If you still don’t believe me, consider the millions of Americans who are willing to pay premium prices for organic fruits and vegetables despite studies repeatedly showing no tangible benefits to health or nutrition. Some of you might be ones who are buying organic and are rationalizing your decision or calling me a liar. That’s what happens when you let a corporation’s marketing department do your thinking for you; you get ripped off. Same thing with the MOB industry. Don’t let it happen!

Another factor is that we in the West are used to throwing money at problems to make them disappear. Also, if you’ve done some research in seeking MOB’s you might get an impression that it will cost a significant amount of money (which is true), most of which will go to covering her expenses while you date and decide to get married. So you figure sending her money for plane tickets and a visa is what is expected of you. It’s not! We have grown so accustomed to rising standards of living, decent wages and salaries and freedom that we’ve lost all critical thinking skills and common sense. A good rule of thumb is that if something seems to good to be true, then it probably is. A supermodel half a world away who doesn’t know you isn’t going to fall in love with you after three letters, nor is she going to leave everything behind to come to you. It’s not gonna happen!

Fat Yuri, knows the language of love and seduction very well and may convince you that he’s the woman you see in the pictures he’s sending you. So it may be worth going over a few red flags to set your compass in this endeavor. Keep in mind that red flags aren’t hard and fast rules, there are exceptions. But I’ve encountered Fat Yuri in my travels and so have others that have come before me so we’ve identified patterns of behavior that we were able to simplify into some tidbits of wisdom. It’s not perfect or exhaustive, but don’t use that as an excuse to ignore the advice entirely. Just keep your head up.

She doesn’t seem to be answering any of your questions— You’ve both been exchanging information about your lives and dreams, but it’s feeling generic and when you try to ask specific and unique questions she doesn’t answer them. It’s because Fat Yuri is using form letters and sending them to hundreds of men like you. Yuri can anticipate general questions like Where do you live? and What do you do? and try to incorporate answers to these common questions in the form letters, but he can’t anticipate everything so some questions will get missed and never answered.

She is sending a photo attached to every letter, even when you didn’t ask for one– If you ask for photos of the lady you are writing to, that’s one thing. Sending photos in the first letter is also very normal and expected. But as correspondence continues she is sending a photo with every letter. As time goes on, these photos may even be nudes or very sexually suggestive. This means that Yuri thinks he’s hooked you and he’s trying to reel you in. A genuine RW you never met certainly won’t send naked photos of herself. And besides her introductory letter, she won’t send any photos unless you ask for them. Don’t be too suspicious of photos that she took in a studio or photos of her wearing a bikini during her holiday trip to Egypt. These are pretty common. But I think you’ll recognize unusual photos when you see them.

She falls in love with you– You guys haven’t met yet and I doubt that you’re poetic enough to make her heart melt with your written word. In fact, if you tried professing your love after a few emails with her, a normal RW will think that you’re crazy. So why would you believe it when she does it? At the correspondence stage, you’re just exploring compatibility, nothing more. Save the love talk until after you had your first meeting in person, at least.

She asks you to send money– It hardly matters what it’s for, but any money request is immediately suspicious. It doesn’t matter if it’s for plane tickets to visit you, a sick grandmother (you’ll learn that Russia is full of “sick grandmothers”), she wants to take English lessons to communicate better with you, she needs to cover internet and translation costs, anything. If you have met her and your relationship has developed to a certain degree of closeness and intimacy then it’s perfectly natural to help her out within reason. But if you’re simply corresponding and she asks for money, it’s a red flag.

She addresses you by a different name— Don’t laugh! This has happened. Sometimes Fat Yuri forgets to change the name on the form letters he’s sending you. He’s probably hooked quite a few guys and is getting you all confused.

She’s much too attractive for you– I hate to break it to you, but if she looks like the type of woman who wouldn’t give you the time of day in America, then you probably won’t get very far with a woman like her in Russia either. If you don’t believe me, go ahead and correspond with her and see how far you get. There’s a kernel of truth in the claim that RW don’t place much emphasis on looks, but once she puts herself on an international dating site, she will quickly learn her market value in terms of male attention and the beauties will have options. Keep your expectations realistic!

These points will cover the most common ones. It isn’t an exhaustive list and some scams from Fat Yuri are a lot more subtle. It’s also not beneath a RW to perpetrate a scam herself and her scams will cost you much more in time and money because she’s an actual girl. Just keep your head on straight and your eyes open. If it’s too good to be true, it is!